


never saw the bright side

by Kalgalen



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Light Canon Typical Gore, Mention of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalgalen/pseuds/Kalgalen
Summary: Oscar knows exhaustion. He's flirted with it more time than he can count - sometimes he simply gets swept up in a string of events that he has to see to the end, no matter the consequences on his personal health. He knows what it's like to fall asleep when one is deeply exhausted. He also knows this kind of sleep comes without any dreams - only darkness, and a blissful absence of thoughts.This time, though, as exhausted as Oscar might be - he does dream. He dreams in bright colors and echoing noises, bits of memories entwined with hopes and fears, quieted desires and old pains.





	never saw the bright side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shoulder_Devil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulder_Devil/gifts).



> Wassup I've got too many feelings about Oscar Wilde - which isn't something I ever thought I'd say, but here we are?
> 
> Written for the 2019 RQG Exchange, @Shoulder_Devil hope u like it!!

Oscar Wilde isn't a likable person.

He’s charming, without a doubt. One could even describe him as intriguing - surprising, _fascinating_ , even; people are drawn to him like moths to the flame, and he'd be lying if he pretended he didn't revel in the attention.

But likable? Certainly not. _That_ isn't something he's ever heard said about him. He's got many connections and many acquaintances, but there's no one he can call a friend - and that is the way he wants it. He's aware it sounds like something that could be found in a cheap paperback, but it doesn't make it any less true. He's chosen long ago to focus on his job. He knows he's a cog in a big machine that quite literally makes the world go round. It requires - no, it _deserves_ \- his full focus. It's a career he loves, one that brings him fulfillment in ways he doubts having close relationships could, so it's - fine. He doesn't really _need_ people that way.

Vivid red blooms on the paper under his eyes; he dizzily attempts to swipe it away, only managing to smear it a bit more. It takes him a moment to understand the origin of it as blood keeps dripping - _tap, tap, tap_ \- from his nose and onto his notes.

Despite what he might have thought about relationships before, he finds himself regretting no one will care enough to miss him. Even so, his last thought before he passes out is for all the unfinished work he leaves behind.

* * *

The subsequent events are a bit of a blur. Waking up at all comes as a surprise - or at least it would, if he had the energy to feel anything but massively exhausted. There's a pair of eyes above him, blazing red in the otherwise grey soup that is his vision - Grizzop, looking down on him, annoyed, or worried, or even both, perhaps. Oscar lets himself be propped up and questioned, and he answers with as much sincerity as he can. Trying to think up a lie would be way more taxing that it would be worth anyway. In the end, Grizzop says something about taking him to the temple of Artemis, and what can Oscar do but follow? He's out of ideas, out of will, out of anything that's not the desire to drop down and sleep - or die, whichever comes first.

The trip to the temple makes him regret he didn't bleed out back in his borrowed office. The light is too bright, the people too loud, the air too heavy with smells and dust. It's all too much for his weakened senses, and he uses what strength he has left not to pathetically cling to Grizzop as they walk through Damascus.

A cleric guides them to an examination room and tries to put him under a sleeping charm - as if Oscar hadn't tried that before! It fails, of course. Twice. The nightmares that assault him as soon as he closes his eyes finish to drain him. He doesn't understand a word of the cleric and the paladin's considerations until they directly address him again. He lets himself be manipulated like a puppet - gods know it's how he feels at the moment, heavy-limbed and empty-headed. Everything seems to come from a great distance, sounds and colors muted to the point they all merge in a dull, insipid stew he knows he's eventually going to drown under.

The solution the Artemisians come up with - once they've flipped through all the possible causes of his situation - is surprisingly simple. He would even have considered it himself, if the idea of being deprived of his favored weapon in such a tense political climate didn't make him terribly nervous.

He accepts the shackles as they're brought to him, lets the cold iron close around his wrists and take away his magic. And then - then the part of him that's persuaded it won't work, that this waking nightmare can only end with his death - _quiets._

He's asleep before his head hits the pillow.

* * *

Oscar knows exhaustion. He's flirted with it more time than he can count - sometimes he simply gets swept up in a string of events that he has to see to the end, no matter the consequences on his personal health. He knows what it's like to fall asleep when one is deeply exhausted. He also knows this kind of sleep comes without any dreams - only darkness, and a blissful absence of thoughts.

This time, though, as exhausted as Oscar might be - he does dream. He dreams in bright colors and echoing noises, bits of memories entwined with hopes and fears, quieted desires and old pains.

He's staring at a campfire. All around him sprawls an expanse of smooth glass that reflects the black sky above like a calm sea. Here and there, half-melted beams of steel rise above the surface like the mangled masts of a massive sunken ship.

Azu is sitting next to him - a sturdy, comforting shape emanating a dim pink light. Sasha was there too, back when they explored the destroyed factory; in his dreams, however, it's only Azu, him, and their reflections in the cooling glass beneath them.

Oscar’s reflection returns him a tired glance when he looks at it; he mechanically replaces a strand of hair where it belongs, grasping at old habits to try and ignore the fact he feels like a wrung towel.

“They worry about you.”

Azu’s voice is like a thunderclap in the quietness, despite how softly she's speaking. She speaks in that low, concerned tone that is customary to her, but her words fil the void in a way that's impossible to ignore, impossible to run away from.

“Sure they do,” comes Oscar’s bitter response, though he’s never intended to talk.

“You don't believe me.”

Oscar keeps his eyes focused on his mirror image, because even though it's all just a dream, he's not quite ready to see pity in Azu’s eyes when she looks at him.

“They haven't given me many reasons to believe otherwise,” he says, casually. “And I haven't given them any reason to care about me, either.” He can hear the acerbity creeping back into his tone, and he shakes his head. “It's better that way. They don't like me, I don't -" - _like them,_ he tries to say, but the words skip on his tongue like lost beats on a scratched record, and he finds himself saying instead: "This is a professional relationship. Nothing more.”

"Are you not lonely?" Azu asks gently. Oscar stares down at his reflection so hard Azu's starts blurring on the edge of his vision.

"It's not- important." Oscar has told himself those words numbers of times, and they should be easier to say; instead he stumbles and stutters. "I don't- I'm not- It doesn't matter, whether I'm lonely or not. It doesn't matter, because I have a job to do, a job that entails giving orders and making hard choices, some of which might lead to the death of the people under my orders, and I can't-" Oscar fumbles, taken aback by the stream of words. He's never articulated this before, especially not in front of someone who might become a casualty of his poor decisions someday, but he can't - does not _want_ to - stop. "I _can't_ care, I can't be friends with them, because then I'd feel even worse for - killing them, essentially, right? I’ve seen so many people die because of the orders I've given, and every time it feels like I've failed them, like I've _betrayed_ them-”

He feels a touch on his arm, and he glances at Azu - except it's not Azu he sees, not exactly. He sees Lila’s serious gaze, and Pierre’s hopeful one; he sees Zula’s smirk, and Khalid’s frown, and Gwen’s tired smile, and so many more faces he'd thought he’d never see again, looking at him with varying levels of kindness.

“We forgive you.”

Oscar doesn't answer. He looks up at the sky, at the big, full moon shining bright above him.

The moon looks back.

It _blinks,_ and when it reappears, it is a deep, vivid orange - another blink, and a perfect copy appears not far from it. The two bright circles bathe Oscar in a warm, caring light; mesmerized by the orbs - by the _eyes,_ for that's what they remind him of - he doesn't realize at first that the surface he's sitting on has changed.

The substance under his hands feels like some kind of tile. He absently traces around a couple of smooth squares of a hard, stonelike material, trying to remember what they make him think of. They feel warm under his fingertips. Not the way the glass had felt, though - cooling down in the desert air, the result of a demonstration of violence. Instead, the heat reminds him of that given off by another living being, standing nearby.

The eyes get closer, and Oscar's breath catches when the reality of what he's looking at registers. The light emanating from the eyes illuminate a long reptilian snout, bronze scales shimmering along an elongated face. Two wings are opened behind the creature, merely block of darker black in the obscurity around them. Looking around to see five claws raised around him like glittering pillars, Oscar realizes belatedly he's sitting in a dragon's palm.

More specifically, he's sitting in Apophis' palm.

The Meritocrat does not speak. They consider him at length, tilting their head on the side - weighting his soul and his worth, seemingly able to see through him as if all his mannerisms and pretenses were clear glass. As always when he finds himself in front of one of the world's most powerful beings, Oscar feels minuscule, a fly before an elephant. He notices he's kneeling, now, the position of humility near automatic despite his own naturally cocky nature and Apophis' dislike for ceremonies. One does not just get used to being casual around Meritocrats, no matter how long one serves them.

"Look at me, Wilde," says the dragon - not the rumble he's used to from the gigantic creature, but a gentle murmur, something he recognizes as well, but not -

He looks up, bewildered, examines the draconic face - and it is a face he _knows,_ though he's never seen it so plainly marked by its legacy.

“Hamid?” he asks, and the dragon blinks, the equivalent of a smile passing over his features.

"Why do you insist on pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion? Why don't you ask for help?"

Oscar sighs, chuckles, then looks down. "I don't like to delegate, I guess. No way to make sure something's been done right if I haven't done it myself, you know?"

"Do you trust me, Oscar? Do your trust us?"

Oscar is left speechless for a few seconds, because he wants to say - _"yes, of course, with my life"_ \- and he finds out he'd mean it, too. The confession is hard to give, but Hamid seems to understand all the same.

“Then you should let us help you, yeah? We're a team, now more than ever."

He seems to be expecting an answer, but all Oscar can offer is a one-shouldered shrug and a small sound of assent.

The dragon that isn't Apophis smiles again. "Get some rest, Oscar.”

With those words, the bright eyes close, and Oscar finds himself in the dark once again.

He stays there in silence for a while. He wonders if the dream is finally over - if he's going to be allowed, finally, to rest without being confronted to his personal issues. After a moment, the darkness begins to crawl with the idea of colors that aren't here, and the silence fills with a low, pulsing absence of sound. Then, behind him:

A sob.

Oscar gets on his feet. He tries to determinate the source of the noise, which soon comes again - choked, pained, resentful. He turns around to find Sasha, standing in front of a mirror and a bassin. She's divested of her jacket for once, only clad in her pants and a black tank top that dramatically highlights how pale and gaunt she really is. She doesn't turn back when Oscar calls her name. He eventually decides to come closer, making his steps purposely loud so he doesn't take her by surprise - and consequently find himself on the wrong end of a dagger.

As he approaches, he can see a shape slowly appearing on her skin. It looks like a bad bruise resurfacing - blood seeping through the skin, painting the wings of a familiar bird across her back. He can see her hands clutched on the edge of the bassin, stained red and white-knuckled; her shoulders are drawn around her ears, and a singular sob escapes her again before she can stop it. Oscar takes another step forward - staggers, suddenly, as Sasha's emotions hit him like a steel wall. She does not speak, yet he hears the thoughts swirling in her head - the fear, the pain, the confusion, she's dying, _dying, already dead,_ and there's nothing anyone can do against it. She watches her fate creep closer every day, each morning she wakes up covered in blood. Her frustration and terror seep between Oscar's ribs like her daggers would, and he's left aching - remembering how he'd acted toward her then, the flippancy with which he'd treated her situation - and it had seemed like the easiest solution at the moment, to act as if it didn't matter to him, so that it'd hurt less when the inevitable finally happened.

He comes to realize he might have been mistaking.

Sasha's reflection in a mirror is an horrifying picture of wasting and decay; her skin is so white it looks translucent, stretched thin over her skull. The scar on her chest - Y-shaped, bloody, a sight more terrible than their reports could have prepared him to - looks like it's about to split open again, and she's holding a rag stained red with the blood she's tried to wipe off. He can feel the cracks in her mind, the carefully neutral façade she usually wears starting to shatter under the strain of fighting against an opponent she can never hope to fend off.

Oscar reaches out, hesitant before he finally decides to lay a hand on her shoulder; he knows he can't properly _feel_ it in his dream, but he also knows she's cold as ice, cold as a gravestone. She gasps, looks up in the mirror; when she meets Oscar's eyes in their reflection, her shoulders slump again.

"Why are you here?" She sounds weary - vanquished. He doesn't think he's ever seen her anything but looking poised to jump at the slightest hint of trouble. The contrast makes him look away in shame.

"I- I'm not sure," he says, frankly. She snorts, bitter.

"Think you made yourself pretty clear, mate. I don't want your pity. I want your help, or for you to just leave me alone already."

Oscar drops his hand, but stays stuck in place, even though he'd rather be anywhere else now.

"I'm sorry," he says - because he is, truly; he'd known of her distress, but he'd chosen to make light of it, because - because it was easier for him, alright? He'd thought - he'd been so sure that by making people despise him, their death wouldn't hurt as much.

"No offense, Wilde, but I really, really don't care."

Except that this - _this_ hurts. Seeing Sasha subdued and scared, not a spark of fight left in her, all because he'd ruled that her fate was sealed already - because he'd selfishly decided the best solution for him was to burn bridges before they collapsed, instead of acting against their demise.

"I made a mistake," Oscar admits; Sasha looks up once again, a hint of surprise in her sunken eyes. "I thought it would be better for everyone involved if..." he trails off, then corrects himself. "I thought moving on before the bad thing even happened was the best way to keep doing my work correctly."

Sasha stares silently, neither encouraging him nor pushing him away. Waiting.

"I think...I'm finding out..." he picks his words cautiously, parsing through his own confused thoughts. "Perhaps I can't afford to lose any more people. Perhaps I don't want to."

It feels - good, actually, to say it - to allow himself to care, to decide he won't let anyone go without a fight again. There aren't many people he can trust, right now; he can't afford to lose them because of his own inaction.

"I don't _want_ to."

_I'll do better, now._

* * *

Waking up feels a bit like teleporting - like his consciousness playing catch-up with his body. He opens his eyes on the cracked ceiling, taking stock of the situation: the uncomfortably thin mattress he's lying on, the disturbing chill around his ears, the snores and shuffling of other bodies in the vicinity. It takes him a moment to remember where he is and what he is doing here. When he eventually gets there, he slowly sits up, wincing when it feels like each movement presses on an invisible bruise. He reaches for the usually ever-present stream of magic on instinct, but can't bring himself to feel worried when he comes up empty-handed. Instead, he looks around.

The cell is a simple square of stone ground enclosed by rows of bars on three of its sides. It's a testament of how disoriented Wilde is that he doesn't notice Grizzop immediately; the paladin is standing just beyond the gate of the cell - arms crossed, silently watching as Wilde gets his bearings. The moonlight falling from the narrow windows on top of the walls glints off his breastplate, lending him an ethereal look that makes Wilde doubt, for a split second, that he's awoken at all.

"Hey," he says when it looks like Grizzop isn't going to talk first. His own voice sounds threadbare and frayed even to his own ears, and he cringes, clears his throat. "So, not dead, huh?"

"Doesn't look like it," says Grizzop, noncommittal.

"Hmm." A pause, as Wilde tries to remember what led him to sitting in a prison cell. His recent memories are incredibly blurry, and only fragments come back to him. Exhaustion, bone-deep tiredness, blood splatters on important documents - darkness, darkness, then Grizzop shaking him back to consciousness and dragging him to his temple. Wilde looks at Grizzop for a moment, long enough that the goblin shifts defensively on his feet, his eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"Thank you."

"Oh." Grizzop looks away, relaxing imperceptibly. "Don't thank me. We need you."

He snaps his mouth shut, visibly taken aback by his own directness for once - then tries to play it off as if isn't a big deal. "Can't let the brain of the operation just drown in a pool of blood, now can I? Wouldn't be very professional of me."

Oscar leans his back against the stone wall behind him, smiling tiredly.

"I think," he says, trying out the candid approach, "that we need each other, to be honest. Stronger united, all of that."

Grizzop hums, gives Oscar a strange look.

"Hmm. That's uncharacteristically wise of you, Wilde. Are you alright?"

Oscar chuckles. "Better now than I've been in... a while."

"Right." The silence lingers again, and Oscar closes his eyes again, the shadow of sleep creeping on him yet again. Then he hears Grizzop again, a murmur so quiet he barely catches it: "Get some more rest, Wilde. We need you. I mean it."

Oscar opens his eyes to answer, but the paladin's already vanished, lighter on his feet than anyone in plate armor has the right to be. Oscar blinks in surprise, then mutters to himself:

"Just a dream."

He lies back down, and goes back to sleep.

* * *

This time, his dreams are empty.

**Author's Note:**

> You're waking me up  
> I never saw the bright side  
> Not up until today  
> I always saw the darkness in everything  
> Stubborn locks of gold  
> Hiding my face inside of my head  
> Running my mouth but not telling ya how I feel  
> How I feel
> 
>  
> 
>  _Wake Me Up_ \- Foreign Air


End file.
